Hopes for Syriza’s negotiations with the banking troika in the EU simmered and even boiled over among elements of the left, especially after the vaunted “No” referendum vote suggested that the Greeks would not succumb to another wave of austerity measures but would instead stand firm, even if this meant potentially leaving the EU. We have seen these hopes dashed by the subsequent “negotiations,” in which Tsipras seemed to have negotiated backwards, arriving at an agreement that was worse than the one rejected by the Greek voters in the referendum vote. This development has been characterized by some on the left as a blow to the working class, and to the leftist, world-historical opposition to neo-liberal capitalism.

But the fact of the matter is that Syriza neither represents anti-capitalism, nor the working class. This is not to belittle the registration of an anti-austerity position among the Greek majority. But it is to suggest that misplaced confidence is currently a penchant among those desperate to see in contemporary events a real and effective opposition to “neo-liberalism,” which is figured by so many on the left as a mere matter of policy rather than as primarily a function of the crisis of degenerate capitalism, a capitalism that must take a “principled” stance against its opposition, lest it give away the store.

The Greek economic minister, Yanis Varoufakis, seemed to have lost his putative Marxist bearings when he, like Paul Krugman, continually insisted that the European Central Bank need not enact austerity, that its best interests actually lay with largesse towards its debtors. Many among the international left were buoyed by this insistence, and accepted its premises implicitly. The Greek people, meanwhile, had little choice but to hope for the best.

However, many ultra-leftists and left communists, and even those of other communist tendencies, fully anticipated Syriza’s failure. This prediction was usually based on a criticism of Syriza’s political character. Syriza is a capitalist party, so the story goes. Thus it did not negotiate in good faith, or failed to have the correct principles in mind. This is only a partial explanation for the outcome. Less often, the prediction was based on an understanding of the systemic impossibility of winning major concessions from capitalism under existing conditions.

Here’s how this latter explanation reads: The capitalist system faces a crisis of confidence based on a crisis of profit; its ministers cannot see their way clear to lending vast sums of money—because they do not expect acceptable returns—without extracting those returns out of existing value and the means of social reproduction itself. That is, they cannot undertake lending without enacting a barbarous austerity that extracts value from out of the mouths of the Greek population.

Today, in terms of prediction, those employing such shorthand Marxist economic analyses continually outperform neo-Keynesians and Marxists of more sanguine disposition, whatever the latter’s sophistication. This is so because Keynesian nostrums are the only “remedies” on offer from the left. Yet no possibility exists for moving from a minimum program to a maximum program, because no minimum program can be achieved. The iron laws of capital have apparently reached a limit in flexion, as limited as that flexion was to begin with. They now form the jowls of a mechanical predator that must feed on human carcasses, much as in Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal.” Capitalism’s predation is on full display, its self- and other-immolating character owing to its decrepit condition. The Greeks, along with the rest of the world’s population, represent hostages to a system that staggers in its attempts to yield profit as it generates value. Thus the relative paucity of value production and the need for blood sucking measures.

Meanwhile, in terms of policies, perhaps more than at the EU ministers, criticism should be directed at the Greek government and its ruling party, Syriza, whose class allegiance remains implicit and largely unchallenged. It has, for example, never considered extracting value out of the oligarchy or the Greek Orthodox Church. The working class, especially the most vulnerable within it, has always been the only acceptable target of life-threatening austerity measures, which the Greek government will now enact, whether under Syriza’s rule or not.

* * *

It is in this context, the context of capitalism and its decadent state as acted out on a world scale, that we must consider the candidacy of Bernie Sanders for President of the United States. A Democratic Party candidate, Sanders represents the possibility of opposing neo-liberalism, or at least injecting that opposition into the national “conversation.” While few maintain that Sanders has a real chance of winning the Democratic Party’s nomination, let alone the presidency, most supporters suggest that at the very least he will accomplish the much-needed task of pushing the Democratic Party to the left. This might even impact the politics of Clinton in her bid for the presidency.

Putting aside for a moment the fact that Sanders is running as a Democrat, a party whose allegiance to finance capital is well known, whose commitment to war is equal to that of the Republicans, and whose attacks on working-class living standards have been legendary, the Sanders candidacy represents the Keynesian or neo-Keynesian belief that neo-liberalism, primarily the result of a set of governmental policies favoring corporations and the ruling class rich, can be reversed by means of different, opposing policies.

There is something to be said for this belief. As we have seen in the case of Syriza, even with the imposition of austerity, the decision to extract value from the working class, the vast majority, largely will be a policy decision undertaken by Syriza or another party. This could be otherwise. The Greek government could tax its oligarchy, confiscate church properties, nationalize some industries, and so forth. Similarly, in the United States, the working class has paid the greatest price for the financial crisis of 2008, and it continues to bear the brunt of crisis that persists as the “new normal.” The income chasm between workers and their corporate employers has widened over the past several years, and policies might be undertaken to reverse this trend. At least the tax burden, as Sanders suggests, could be shifted toward those who take the lion’s share of value from the system, and whose tax liability has been so diminished over the past forty-plus years. Further, drawing on such new tax revenues, investments in infrastructure and other measures could stimulate economic growth and increase the income of the working class, while improving the quality of working-class lives. Sanders, or a Sanders surrogate in Clinton, might even address the question of reparations for African-Americans, which, if enacted, would inject more money into layers of the working class.

However, even before considering such measures, the question of new value production must be broached. Again, given the crisis in profit, the capitalist class and their banking representatives are less than sanguine about the prospects for investment in production. The question becomes, even granted an obliging legislature, just what a President Bernie Sanders (or his surrogate) could accomplish in terms of the improvement of the economic conditions of the working class, where employment and other gains are concerned. Further, what leverage would Sanders or Clinton have for “fighting for” the working class? Even if Sanders succeeded, as some say he could, in encouraging a movement that overflowed the banks of the Democratic levees, just what might be accomplished by virtue of such a movement?

The question becomes whether the capitalist class can make concessions under the crisis of capitalism without further retrenchment in productive capacities. As it stands, over the past forty-plus years, we have witnessed a tremendous curtailment of investment in social reproduction, such that the withering of state and private property investments has resulted in a shrunken and shrinking fixed capital base, along with the continual sloughing off of even more layers of variable capital (the labor power of workers). Given the new, vaunted robotic automation that is promised, even more layers of workers could lose their jobs, thus offsetting or more than offsetting any gains Sanders or Clinton might achieve in employment. And if this were not bad enough, the increased technology investments in robotics (to the detriment of labor) would have the effect of further drawing down the rate of profit, thus serving to further stifle investment in production and thus labor. Likewise, the increasing introduction of robotic automation would enlarge the already growing layers of displaced workers.

All of this is to say that the problems that beset and will continue to beset the working class cannot be addressed in terms of a presidential candidate—to say the very least. The crisis and trends in capitalism are too vast and cannot be stricken from existence by policy enactments. Keynesian or neo-Keynesian economics, which surely represent the limit of a Democratic presidency (if it could even be made that “liberal”), have no bearing on the fundamental contradictions of capitalism, which will play out regardless of such tinkering. And this analysis may be obviated by the simple fact that without the support of the ruling class, a President Sanders would never be elected. Therefore, the kind of Sanders hoped for is impossible.

In short, there is no substitute for the mobilization of the working class, and this mobilization cannot at all be effective in the context of a ruling-class party system like the Democratic Party. There is no saying “No” to neo-liberalism—short of rejecting and overcoming capitalism itself. That is because reforms are largely impossible under decadent capitalism. Neo-liberalism represents the policy adjustments to this decadent capitalism.

Likewise, for these reasons and others, a Sanders or Clinton presidency of the kind hoped for is an utter delusion. The Sanders campaign involves a number of misrepresentations of political and economic reality. The promotion of a Sanders presidency is not merely an error; it is a positive offense to the working class, and a source of real damage to its political strength, will, and efficacy.

Comments

You’re a few days late and few trillion credits short with this critique. Might have had some relevance if IN had said anything about Syriza leading up to and after its election to power, but IN didn’t, despite repeated urgings.

Silence isn’t a virtue, and to offer a critique after what can only be regarded as a serious reversal to working class struggle that doesn’t even offer a single tactic, a single action, a single concrete proposal for addressing this reversal…….well, it’s just not useful.

It’s not a serious reversal to working-class struggle; that’s where you’re wrong. It’s a reversal to the hopes of leftists who do not grasp why it’s not a reversal to working-class struggle. It would be a reversal to working-class struggle had it had the slightest chance of being successful, but it didn’t. While this may not have been stated on IN, I have written it elsewhere, just after Syriza took power, in fact. Their failure was a given.

Not a serious reversal? Would you call the last 5 years in Greece, living standards declining by 40% in certain categories a big reversal? I would. And what’s ahead under a third MFFA? Further declines in living standards? I’d call that continuation of a big reversal.

This is what I mean about substituting ideology for history. Not a concrete word about the relations between Greek and European capitalism; not a concrete word about Syriza’s role in channeling protest “safely” into the parliamentary mode; not a single word about Syriza’s attempt to isolate austerity from debt from capitalism from “Europe.” All we get is the moral approbation so associated with “decadence” theories a la:

“Yet no possibility exists for moving from a minimum program to a maximum program, because no minimum program can be achieved. The iron laws of capital have apparently reached a limit in flexion, as limited as that flexion was to begin with. They now form the jowls of a mechanical predator that must feed on human carcasses, ”

So what? When the Syriza government was demanding municipalities forward all cash reserves to the national government for payment of the debt– not a word; not a suggestion for municipal councils to prevent such actions and demand the cash reserves being turned over to the councils to repair, and maintain, the meager social welfare services.

Not a serious reversal? What forces are strengthened by Syriza’s capitulation? Workers? Not hardly. Golden Dawn? Mos’ def.

And not a single word to those who hoped for something from Syriza– not a single word suggesting a vote of “no confidence.”

Not a serious reversal? more serious than cancer. It will become a serious as the ovethrow of the UP government in Chile in 1973. And please, I advocated no support to Syriza from the getgo.

The final capitulation is only a reversal for those who actually placed (false) hope in Syriza to begin with. That is not to say that the conditions in Greece are not serious and a serious reversal to the working class in general. Perhaps you are not reading very closely. I’ve made it clear that Syriza’s failure is only a reversal for the leftists who imagine that they had a chance of success. They didn’t.

“The final capitulation is only a reversal for those who actually placed (false) hope in Syriza to begin with”

Well, that would be about half the population, just using the electoral figures. And then there’s what’s going happen with the general demoralization of the working class; the reinvigoration of the police to control protests and resistance……..

Nothing to worry about though. .

Oh, I’ve been “reading closely.” You, IMO, don’t have the slightest grasp of the actual movement of class struggle.

Syriza’s “personal failure” is not the issue; the impact on the prospects for workers resistance is.

You really do imagine that Syriza’s leadership could or should have amounted to something. Apparently you don’t understand the argument of the essay that you are commenting on so vehemently. You imagine that the class struggle can suffer from the defeat of a party that doesn’t represent the working class to begin with. How can you imagine things could have turned out otherwise. The failure is the left that keeps its hopes in such parties as proxies for real working-class activity.

“You really do imagine that Syriza’s leadership could or should have amounted to something”

That’s hilarious, given that I’ve been writing almost daily for 5 months why Syriza must capitulate.

Simple question that will put the issue of reversal in perspective:
What forces are strengthen by Syriza’s capitulation, the forces of repression, or the forces for emancipation?

Recognizing the Syriza’s capitulation was “predetermined” doesn’t mean that the EU bourgeoisie didn’t feel threatened; didn’t launch a ferocious counterattack to Syriza’s weak calls for not reform but relief.

I’m not talking about Syriza’s capitulation as some sort of emotional blow, but ratner what happens next in terms of the economic well being of the working class, the pensioners, the urban and rural poor, and the immigrant laborers in Greece.

The fact that you think capitalism”s “decadence” means that there are no longer possibilities for “reform” is immaterial to the prospects for, and does not preclude conditions from worsening.

The sterility of your “analysis” is established by its inability to comprehend that about capitalism.

“The fact that you think capitalism”s ‘decadence’ means that there are no longer possibilities for “reform” is immaterial to the prospects for, and does not preclude conditions from worsening.”

“For” what? For reform? Yes, I hold that the prospects for reform, even ant-austerity “reform,” are next to nil. Of course, this does not preclude conditions for worsening. But despite your claims to discount Syriza’s efforts, you seem to be stricken by some blow at their failure. The indications of course are for the actual organization of workers themselves outside of such party and parliamentarian means. The failure of Syriza was a given, and the only failure worth lamenting is the failure of organizing working-class bodies in their stead. Why the histrionics about Syriza then? And the standard, “here come the fascists” line is tired. The soft soc-dems have proven as dangerous or more so.

“But despite your claims to discount Syriza’s efforts, you seem to be stricken by some blow at their failure. The indications of course are for the actual organization of workers themselves outside of such party and parliamentarian means. The failure of Syriza was a given, and the only failure worth lamenting is the failure of organizing working-class bodies in their stead. Why the histrionics about Syriza then?”

What histrionics about Syriza? All I’ve said about Syriza is that it was destined to fail from the get.

We can use an analogy of type, but not of degree, with the UP government in Chile 1973; the fact that the UP government had to crumble, had to be overthrown doesn’t change the fact that its overthrow by Pinochet was a significant, serious, substantial reversal for the working class internationally.

We can also refer to Egypt where the overthrow of Morsi by the Egyptian military was undertaken exclusively to suppress the revolutionary process. Doesn’t mean Morsi was anything other than he was. Does mean we recognize the actions of the military for what they were; and the real targets.

What I find so embarrassingly pathetic about your piece is that after 5 months of silence on IN, we get a piece that ignores the history of Greece, the real material conditions of the development and practice of its capitalism; the real meaning of Greece’s “integration” into the eurozone; the real opportunity programmatic opposition to Syriza presented.

Instead we get paragraphs where the illusions of Keynes are given unwarranted validity:

“the Keynesian or neo-Keynesian belief that neo-liberalism, primarily the result of a set of governmental policies favoring corporations and the ruling class rich, can be reversed by means of different, opposing policies.

There is something to be said for this belief. As we have seen in the case of Syriza, even with the imposition of austerity, the decision to extract value from the working class, the vast majority, largely will be a policy decision undertaken by Syriza or another party. This could be otherwise. The Greek government could tax its oligarchy, confiscate church properties, nationalize some industries, and so forth.”

Perhaps you don’t read that well. The illusions of Keynes are not given credibility. They are utterly dispensed with. The paragraph is called a “faulty path” in writing theory. I travel down the path, only to return to the main argument. But, it’s impossible to converse with someone who eieht engages in such willful misreadings merely to present himself as “right,” or simply is reading-challenged to such a degree. Where is your article on Greece and Syriza?

. But, it’s impossible to converse with someone who *either engages in such willful misreadings merely to present himself as “right,” or simply is reading-challenged to such a degree. Where is your article on Greece and Syriza?

In any case, thank you for your comments. They have been duly considered.

Great, illuminating analysis from Michael R. Entirely suitable for IN in its theoretical, historical focus. But it seems to me that S.Artesian is asking MR to supply something he doesn’t set out to do – provide a way forward for Greeks-on-the-street-in their homes, that provides hope and practical ways of dealing with the drek they are in. MR does not and probably cannot do that because it is a categorically different task, as I have discovered in supporting a local labor dispute in Teesside UK. A Japanese/singaporean firm, SITA/Sembcorp aka ‘suez envirronement’ is constructing an Energy/Electricity from Waste (EfW) plant locally, with pre-fabricated plant units brought in and a sophisticated ‘umbrella firm’ network bringing in workers from across the EU (and beyond?). Teesside is a severely ‘deprived’ area and the Unions (Unite/GMB/Ucatt) are fighting on the basis of an Industry Agreement, demanding that SITA pay the rate. Union reps are barred from the plant and there are no translators available at present for the job of communicating with the “foreign” workers being bussed in. The demand is for ‘local’ labour to be used. Employers around the UK are giving various workers ‘time off’ to attend the ppickets because they too are ‘threatened’ by the exclusive-resstrictive-secret tendering method used so far – class collaboration + Localism+desperation! My coomrade and I have challenged the uncompromising ‘Fuck Foreigners’ attitude of a section of the pickets ,probably with EDL influence locally? – but without actually being able to call on ‘The INternational’ to intervene in Poland and Croatia or wherever the gangs are from, how the hell do we forcefully argue that teh fight for work is presently based on anti-working class bases that will back-fire somewhere down the line – we cannot IMO simply say, as is theoretically ‘correct’ that teh basis for the strike should be International Solidarity because that is the only sound working class attitude – not one of the men( no women construction workers visible at present) would have much idea where we are coming from and why they should not see the foreign gangs as scabs, undercutting ‘their’ historically typical ‘local’ jobs and conditions. MR is not trying to answer questions like those, and S.Artesian is right in neding such answers, but not right IMO in blaming MR for his ‘failure’ to do so. Tom Richardson Middlesbrough N.Yorkshire UK – I posted the article on a local FB labor-page suggesting that ‘Bernie Sanders’ be replaced with the name ‘Jeremy Corbyn’ pace our latest Labour Party leadership contest – bang on the nose!IMO Solidarity Tom

Thanks, Tom. My aim in this article, you are right, is to underscore the structural limitations of certain approaches to austerity given the crisis of capitalism. The point is to suggest that one can’t merely ‘say no’ to neo-liberalism as such, because neo-liberalism merely represents a series of policy enactments in response to an underlying condition of capital, which these policies do not and cannot adequately address. Yes, I leave it to others, or my own subsequent articles, to offer recommendations for actions based on this structural impasse.

And that was exactly the aim of my criticism: that five months after the election of Syriza; after its attempt to separate austerity from debt, debt from the EU, the EU from capitalism,– pointing out that one can’t merely ‘say no’ to “neo-liberalism” as such, is pointless; is an exercise in “I told you so.”

Silly me, but I think there’s a real class struggle going on in Greece, and that Syriza represents an attempt to control that struggle, canalize it into the existing structures of domination.

There is such a class struggle going on. The working class has not yet advanced organs capable yet of becoming organs of its class power in opposition to those existing structures.

Stating that one “wants to underscore the structural limitations of certain approaches to austerity given the crisis of capitalism” is a fine intention, but it requires that you a) define the crisis of capitalism as it is expressed specifically in Greece b) explain how the crisis interlocks with the historical development of Greek capitalism c) what an approach to austerity can be that is perhaps free of such structural limitations.

Wow. That’s pretty sweeping. So Greek capitalism doesn’t have its own peculiarities of development; its specific conflicts between land, labor, and urban production? So Greek capitalism doesn’t bear, and exhibit, and still wrestle with the limitations of Greece development as part of the Ottoman empire? So Greek capitalism doesn’t have a specific history as a product of the Great Powers conflict with the Ottoman empire?

There’s just what? abstract capitalism in Greece? and Bolivia? and China? and South Africa?

For the record, I didn’t say there is a “specifically Greek capitalism”– I said there is a specific development of Greek capitalism. There are specific connections of capitalism in Greece to capitalism in…..Europe, which differ in manifestation, expression than those connections that other countries have….

I said: “a) define the crisis of capitalism as it is expressed specifically in Greece b) explain how the crisis interlocks with the historical development of Greek capitalism c) what an approach to austerity can be that is perhaps free of such structural limitations.”

Your answer of course, is nothing but abstraction, kind of appropriate to the “I told you so” school of critical criticism.

Be it ever so impudent, I would hope IN would be beyond that, would want to tell us something we don’t already know and still need to know.

Bet it ever so presumptuous , I don’t think anybody who pays attention to IN needs to be told that there are “structural limitations” to so-called anti-neo-liberalism that declares its mission is, as Varoufakis put it, to “save capitalism from itself.”

You did refer to “Greek capitalism” as such, by the way. Nevertheless, as nothing will satisfy you other than your own expostulations and condemnations, which fall far short of analysis by the way, I really have nothing to say to you other than please go away. You aren’t helping the working class; you’re a fucking annoyance, period.

No, this is all about you. You’ve made no one whit of analytical argumentation. You’ve merely been posturing as the know-it-all with the answers. Can’t you find something else to do? You’re not making any sense here.

That’s your opinion, not a statement of fact. As your opinion I regard it with the seriousness it deserves.

I have argued that you have dismissed the actual content of the struggle in Greece under an abstract condemnation of the limits of “anti-austerity” and its conflict with “neo-liberalism.”

I have argued that the events in Greece, and the capitulation of Syriza, as foregone a conclusion as it was, is a real reversal to the prospects of class struggle in Greece, akin in type, but not degree, and not severity, to the reversal experienced in Chile with the overthrow of the UP government, as foregone a conclusion as that was.

You, OTOH, deny even the need for analysis: You “deny” that there is specificity to Greek capitalism. You don’t think you even have to define what the “crisis” is, and why it manifest itself in Greece the way it has, differently, but also similar to, how it manifests itself other places.

Nope, you can think you can subsume all that under something called “decadence” and then move on.

When somebody comes along and says “that’s not adequate to the actual circumstances” you get your knickers in a twist and cop your attitude of disdain and superiority.

I’ll continue in this waste of time as long as you persist. Like I said, start making nonsense claims, and I’ll quit responding.

Not a whole lot of disagreement with the broad strokes of the article, but there is truth that Insurgent Notes is a journal which purports to be one of both communist theory and practice. There is little here to suggest that the latter end of the deal is being upheld. As Cde Rectenwald rightly points out, however, there are many other tendencies of leftists which have posited analyses of their own warning of SYRIZA’s inevitable betrayal, but forgot to point out that they also contain tactics and strategies of how to move forward once the wreckage is apparent. What would have been fruitful is an account of how and what Greek workers are organizing already, of the numerous attempts at worker self-management, of militant organizing in the mining sector, hospitals, public transportation, on the docks, schools, et al. Perhaps to show that all of Greece is not just slobbering away with electoralism, but making meaningful, albeit limited, attempts to mediate the damage. Such analyses of concrete conditions and responses could have made for an interesting and poignant article, but the impulse to roundly condemn left-wing bourgeois parties seemed too strong an impulse.

Incidentally, the motivation for many Greek leftists to urge a vote for SYRIZA was disastrous and indeed a true betrayal of working-class interests. Their centrism outweighs their obligations to telling the truth squarely in front of Greek workers. The impulse of the latter to dig for hope in the decaying social and economic landscape of Greece is real, but now that the mask is off, these workers are forcefully presented with an opportunity to see through their mistakes in a strategic manner. And since political cynicism has an unfortunately long and poisonous shelf-life, regroupment of these workers to form a party to raise explicit revolutionary demands is needed–one which ought to thread together demands of different orders so as to enlarge its ranks and push other groups in a more revolutionary direction.

All of this is to say: how does IN or Cde Rectenwald see a distinct Left Communist strategy for Greek workers who may not be able to entirely subsist on a diet of maximal program? What can a Left Communist organization offer the different layers of Greek workers, some whom are perhaps nominal KKE supporters, ANTARSYA supporters and maybe even disaffected PASOK supporters? Just as revolutionaries peer into the pages of history to examine the victories and mistakes of their favourite parties in Russia, China, Spain, so too our task today is no different. In spite of the fact that we are twice removed by an ocean and a sea, the situation we are confronted with is international in scope and can therefore only be solved on an international level. This demands not just theory, but strategy.

Having read this rather long exchange, it’s quite clear that Rectenwald is wrong in accusing Artesian of referring to “Greek capitalism” as such”. He quite clearly says,

“define the crisis of capitalism as it is expressed specifically in Greece”, which in no way is saying that there’s special Greek capitalism but as he says, it manifests itself in specifically Greek ways.

It seems to me that Rectenwald is retreating into the realms of complete abstraction and ultimately, irrelevance as according to him the defeat of Syriza was inevitable and worse, they should have never embarked on it in the first place! So why bother to even consider debating the issues?

“I said: a) define the crisis of capitalism as it is expressed specifically in Greece b) explain how the crisis interlocks with the historical development of Greek capitalism c) what an approach to austerity can be that is perhaps free of such structural limitations.”

Indeed, I said a, b, and c. There is a specific reason that the economic conditions in Greece have developed in this manner; with destruction and impoverishment greater than in Spain, or Ireland; there is a specific historical development of capitalism in Greece, based on the legacy of the Ottoman Empire, and the Great Powers struggle against that empire. And developing an opposition to austerity that is free from the limitations of “anti neo-liberalism” is essential to revolutionary advance.